Last Blog Post!

Hey!

So this is my last blog post - I hope you guys have enjoyed reading! I finished the rest of my time in Karuizawa at the international students conference, which went really well.

I then took the bus back to Tokyo, where I stayed with my uncle for a few days! (Below is a picture I took of a huge crowd taking pictures of a cat on top of an owl statue... I think the people are more amusing than the cat)

... Anyways! Some highlights of my time in Tokyo include coffee at Misuta Donatsu (mister donuts), visiting my old school (the day before classes started some people got together to pray for the school year), and hanging out with my way cool cousin:

Mister Donuts was celebrating 40 years of... donuts... so we joined in the festivities at an exhibition centre:

In case you were wondering, now I'm back in Vancouver (finally!). I flew back yesterday from Narita Airport I thought it would be interesting to do a breakdown on distance travelled (excluding intracity travel):

Shinkansen (3613km), Express Train (1134km), Bus (1389km), Airplane (15146km), Car (80km) = 2262km

and a breakdown of locations I slept at (overnight only - in order of travel)

Airplane (1), Tokyo Dome Hotel (4), House in Higashi-Kurume (2), House in Chiba (5), Ristumeikan Student Residence in Kyoto (4), 'Business Hotel' in Hiroshima (3), Inn in Nagasaki (3), Highway bus travelling from Osaka to Tokyo (1), Internet Cafe in Sapporo (1), Night Train travelling from Sapporo to Aomori (1), Inn in Otsu (2), Highway bus travelling from Kyoto to Tokyo (1), Union Church in Karuizawa (1), Attic of Cabin in Karuizawa (6), Apartment in Tokyo (4) => 39 Nights

Thanks so much for keeping up with my blog! If you are in Vancouver, I look foward to seeing you sometime soon!

Shopping, Matsuri, Conference

So I'm still in Karuizawa, enjoying the cooler mountain weather! There's an outlet mall near here that is similar to the outlet malls in the states... except things are a bit more interesting... take a look at these jeans:

Here's the Nike outlet. I think the shoes might be more colorful though!

You even need to look fashonable when camping with your ukulele:

In the evenings, there are sometimes Matsuri with fireworks and it is very much like a carnival. The one we went to today had a lot of people, but yesterday we went to a Taiko drumming one which had less people and was a little bit eerie...

Otherwise, I've been keeping myself busy hitting the streets with Manga tracts and visiting the local sightseeing places like Shiraito falls, which are only 3m high but come out of the earth and span quite a distance:

The conference also started, which I registered for and am really excited about. It's actually not a conference for international students, but a training for international student ministry led by a group of people from Seattle who have done a lot of work in this area. The people who are at this conference are mostly japanese people who have studied abroad and now are wanting to get equipped to reach out to foreign students studying in Japan.

Anyways, this conference couldn't be more perfect as I think about the coming year (ask me what I'm doing next year with IVCF at UBC!). International student ministry I think is one of the most strategic and impactful yet often overlooked or underrecognized areas of work there is! Perhaps it's the only ministry where you can travel to every corner of the globe and communicate through educated leaders the gospel without leaving your university campus--

Everything I've been doing this trip like the volunteer work with hikikomori, peace tour with multinational students, and now this conference I think can be connected together in a way I hope affects my everyday life when I get back home! I've been learning that perhaps I too quickly form a framework for what I think is happening before really listening and seeking to understand what is going on!

..

and in case you're still reading, here is a random video I felt like uploading of a few of us internationals setting up for telephone pictionary!

Peace ceremony in Kyoto & Karuizawa

On august 15th, I went to a university in kyoto to hear from a few people talk about peace (the 15th being 65 years since the japanese surrender). One guy we heardfrom above is a world war II veteran who fought for the Japanese. Though he was trained to be a kamikaze pilot, because of a chance change of assignment, he was relocated to another location. I wonder about what it must have been like for him to begin training alongside other kamikaze pilots, knowing that his work was to prepare him for a single flight where he would fly with a tank half-empty into battle (no reason to waste valuable fuel on a one-way flight). I can't really imagine what it must have been like to hear news of his reassignment and how he felt towards the people he had been training with. Perhaps this experience has been part of what has made him into the person he is today- who now (after living 4 times longer than expected) speaks in front of japanese university students to encourage them to really think for themselves what peace means.

Afterwards, I went for dinner with a few other people from my trip of peace proliferation in Kyoto, then took the night bus to Tokyo (its an adventure finding your train as you can see:)





After this, I went to another station and took another bus to Karuizawa, which is located near Nagano (think winter olympics 98'). It's a bit cooler up here in the mountains, and right now I'm staying with a missionary family that I know through my family. It has been interesting learning about my family history (my grandparents were missionaries in Japan) and meeting the people staying here.

This morning, some people from pro-life Japan were here, so I worked with them handing out tracts around karuizawa. We set up just outside the church (where I slept last night):






Heres Hidenori Kumai, who wrote for the pokemon manga here in Japan:





Right across this street are some tennis courts where the emperor of Japan met his match (I mean by that the Empress Michiko):

Tomorrow, about 30 or 40 Japanese international students will come here for a conference -- this is what I will be involved with for the next few days.. next post for more on that!

The rest of Sapporo & Tendai Buddhists

In case you guys haven't seen the NHK world TV series yet click HERE! Part 3 of the video covers our peace tour (I appear briefly twice in the segment. once wearing a pink hat folding cranes next to Hiroko and John- in my peace family as you may have read in a previous post, and once with my back turned wearing a purple shirt). Also look at part 1 and 2 if you are interested in learning more about the bombings and this years events.



I spent the rest of my time in Sapporo enjoying the cool weather and looking around town. Places I visited include the "sapporo factory", "clock tower", city hall, and the Odori park. In the winter, ice sculptures are featured in the giant Odori park, which is about a dozen blocks long and cuts through the city leading up to the Sapporo TV tower. However, in the summer time, this space is used for several public beer gardens (in case you didn't know, that is what Sapporo is famous for).





"Irasshaimase" (heard many times in the above clip) is an honorific expression used to welcome people, usually into a place of business. I then returned via night train back to Honshu (the main island of Japan), and then took a couple shinkansen (bullet trains) to Kyoto. Here I met up with some buddhist priests, who are indebted to my father for repatriating a Kesa (piece of ceremonial clothing). Today, I travelled with them by cable car up to the place of the grave of the Kesa owner for a short ceremony, as he died this day many years ago.






I then had a lunch of Shojin Ryori with them (traditionally for priests - no meat or fish)




Tsuzumi, the head of the society for the person whose tomb we visited, has been taking care of me. We also visited the Tendai head office and met the president of Hieizan Enryakuji Temple. Unfortunately, he could not accept the Kesa, which will for now be kept in another temple. All of the people I travelled with are super old, but seem still to have a sense of humor (perhaps they aren't as boring as I thought!). One of them, Yamashita, is the leader of the "Nippon Origami Association in Kyoto". They were also interested to hear about my peace studies.

Now is the obon season, where many people return to their hometown to honor/worship the departed spirits of ancestors in Japan (I realized the implications of this as I tried to book travel to who knows where for this week). It's a buddhist tradition and national holiday and so it's customary for people to get time off work. One belief is that every year, the spirits of the dead return to their tombs to meet the people. I was listening to one of the buddhist monks talk about the tomb we visited (which is located in the middle of the forest and has a giant structure, shown below) and how nice it is:

He commented that anyone's dream would be to after death rest in a place as nice as this and it made me think about what hope there is in their thinking. Is having a final resting place such as this really the greatest thing we can hope for?

Until next time!

Untold Stories of Nagasaki

I left Hiroshima yesterday early in the morning by shinkansen (bullet train). A lot of my experiences in Hiroshima made me think about how huge of an effect the bomb has had on the people of this city- everything from the baseball game we went to to the newspaper had a focus on a movement towards peace in these last few days. Here's a snippet of one of the many pages of the newspaper "mainichi shimbun" which has a picture of a hibakusha and a couple foreigners praying at the moment of silence (8:15 am, exactly 65 years after the bombing):











I'm going to try and summarize the most impactful events of the past couple days, so sorry if this blog post is a bit long! (It's getting pretty close to the end of this Hiroshima Nagasaki trip!). I'm going to divide the next bit into 4 sections. First i'll talk about how incredible different Nagasaki is from Hiroshima, then I'll talk about a seminar with a hibakusha physicist whose work is in blatant disagreement with the RERF, then my experiences at the Oka Masaharu museum for Japanese war atrocities in Asia and finally about the Atomic bombs effecting the time of the end of the war (or not?) . Even though it might seem long, I REALLY think a lot of these things are important so PLEASE read and understand as much as you can =) !






1) From the back of a brocure I found at the Tourism Section of Nagasaki City Hall: "Opened by the Portuguese in 1571, Nagasaki flourished as a busy trading port and center for Christian missionary activities. In 1641, after the adoption of a national ban on Christianity and the expulsion of the Portugese, the Dutch trading post and Chinese settlement in Nagasaki became Japan's only points of contact with the outside world. This monopoly lasted for more than 200 years and created in Nagasaki a unique blend of cultures and a liberal atmosphere unheard of in other parts of the country. The atomib comb catastrophe turned a dark page in Nagasaki's turbulent history, but the city is now a center of peace blessed with the beauty of nature and numerous places of historical and cultural interest which still exude therich flavor of old Nagasaki"





The rich culture and testimony of Christians in Nagasaki is something probably most people from outside of Japan haven't heard too much about. As I mentioned in a comment earlier, while Hiroshima has preserved the a-bomb dome as it was after the explosion, there is no entire bulding preserved the same way in Nagasaki. There was a movement by the government for the Urakami Cathedral to be preserved in a similar way, however, this was mysteriously stopped (and Nagasaki given a generous amount of money from the US for an alternate exhibit) for reasons the other canadian student is investigating as part of her thesis this trip. Even though wikipedia suggests that this preservation of the cathedral exactly where it was (as a few destroyed walls) didn't happen on the request of the church, my canadian friend is thinking that perhaps this Cathedral, being the largest Catholic church in east asia at the time of its construction, was unpreferable to the US as a symbol of the power of nuclear weapons (as the US did in less than a minute what the Japanese Imperial government couldn't do in 200 years in regards to wiping this religious history off the map)





The general impression of our group is that the Nagasaki museum is preferable to the Hiroshima museum both in terms of academic insight and in emotional involvement. I personally felt that from a physics point of view, the description of the bomb was quite comprehensive and there are many moving images and statistics that clearly demonstrate the power of nuclear weapons as well as Hiroshima, if not better. Yet Nagasaki remains largely shadowed by Hiroshima, perhaps because it was the second bombing, but also maybe because censorship by the US to the events of Nagasaki was even more intense than that at Hiroshima. Below is the monument at the bomb hypocentre and in the background is a pillar from the Urakami Cathedral relocated to here.











2) I went to an open house a few days back in Hiroshima of the RERF (Radiation Effects Research foundation) which has a controverisal history as it used to be the ABCC (Atomic Bomb Casualty Commision) which conducted tests on the hibakusha after the bomb. This organization is now jointly run by the US and Japanese governments and continues to analyze the hibakusha.

Today, we heard from a physicist named Shoji Sawada, who was sleeping in his bed at the age of 13 when the hiroshima bomb destroyed his house. He barely managed to escape the rubble as he turned to see his mother who was trapped beyond his ability to help. As flamed came closer to the building his mother said "you should survive, you should become a good person by studying well" and he escaped crying "forgive me, mother!".





65 years later, Shoji continues to do just that, publishing his work on the cover-up of damages by atomic bombing and severe effects of internal exposure by residual radiation. The RERF suggested that the effects of residual radiation was quite low to almost nothing. When an atomic bomb goes off, there is the Blast (50% of energy), the Heat rays (35% of energy), and the Radiation (15% of energy in the form of neutrons and gamma rays]. I don't want to get too much into the physics of it (actually I do, but you probably don't) BUT essentially Shoji said that the effect of the radiation messing up stuff which moves and does bad things in the area is hugely underestimated, as shown by things like the frequency of abnormal birthrates falling proportionately from distance away from Bikini Atoll atomic testing site. Basically, people in many places are using information from the RERF and are UNDERESTIMATING the effects of radiation on the body, which is hugely important for people ranging from nuclear power plant workers to atomic bomb testers.





I asked the RERF people one question (and got an unsatisfactory reply) which I also asked Shoji in regards to the difference between the intensity of radiation exposure between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The hills in Nagasaki (look at the video at the end of this post) mean that less people died as a result of the initail explosion but the intensity of the radiation in Nagasaki was about 1.4 times more than in Hiroshima because of the construction of the bomb and use of plutonium instead of uranium. Peter (one of the American university profs) said that this made sense to him considering that the deaths from the atomic bomb in hiroshima rose from 140 000 to 200 000 over 5 years while the deaths in Nagasaki rose from 70 000 to 140 000. He asked the speaker if it could be possible that there is some correlation with the intensity of radiation emmitted by the bomb and he said most certainly, considering the residual radiation in the fallout from the Nagasaki bomb was much more.












3) Another moving thing for me was going to the Oka Masaharu Museum whose purpose is to "reveal the aggression by japanese army and irresponsible attitude of our govenrnment, also to demand its honest apologies and proper compensation to victims". This museum is not very big, not very air conditioned, and not quite as english friendly but it is VERY important to understanding the greater picture of WWII. There were displays on horrors such as the forced workers from other colonies of Japan, "comfort women" and attacks like the Nanking massacre. Many forced workers died from food loss and disease (but then again, a huge amount of Japanese casualties were because of the same things. After WWII 54,000 Japanese in China died from the same things- the image of people who die in war is usually from enemy attacks but I think starvation and disease are hugely underrepresented)






Tonight I was talking with a Ristumeikan student looking from Inasayama Hill (see video at end) and thinking about this museum. She expressed her concern over the lack of comprehensiveness in the Japanese school system in regards to the depiction of these events (only a very small space was spent talking about the experiences of these victims and she learned many new things for the first time today). Comparing this conversation to another one I had with one of the Chinese members of our tour, I'm becoming more and more convinced bias is everywhere. She expressed her experience where the Japanese are portrayed as a terrible people that students are made to hate in the educational system today. Upon coming to Japan and meeting Japanese people, her thoughts have changed and she told me about her experience here. (Perhaps there is some similarity between the differences in this story told by Japanese/Chinese schools and the story of the bombings told by American/Japanese schools)





[don't worry we're almost there!]






4) Perhaps some of you were surprized when I said that I thought that the dropping of the bombs didn't really have much to do with the time of the ending of the war -- I want to let you guys know that I take it back.





I'm now starting to think that perhaps the development of nuclear weapons by the US and decision to use such weapons on Japan actually made the war last longer, increasing casualties on both sides. In 1945, Japan was looking for surrender (as intercepted by American decoders) yet remained fixed over the issue of the surrender terms and keeping of the Emporor. It was always in the best interest of the US to keep the japanese emporor (or else they would have ended up with something like Iraq) but this idea was not expressed as the US demanded an unconditional surrender until after the second bombing. Perhaps the US was waiting until the dropping of the bombs.






__________________







Before coming to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I guess I was under the impression that coming here would help me experience what the hibakusha went through. Maybe going to the places that the bomb was dropped and talking with survivors would enable me to paint a picture for what it must have been like.





As I listen to hibakusha talk about there experiences (one speaker yesterday lost her entire family and yet continued to go through her incredibly diffucult life while struggling as nagasaki rebuilt itself to live despite the adverse effects of the radiation) I realize that I really can't imagine it. This person pictured below after being badly burned received no care for a month then was hospitalized for 3 years - the first 21 months of which were spent not moving on his front. They continue to cause him great discomfort to this day, even though he has had 23 operations.








Somehow I can't really describe what it was like to hear first hand this guy talk about his life. I don't know what will happen after the hibakusha (all of whom are at least 65) pass away but I do know that it's important to hear them now. Anyways I kindof feel like I'm not doing it justice but... tomorrow is an early start, its around 1, and this whole week I've had between 3 and 6 hours of sleep so I think I'll end it here!





[movies of Nagasaki peace museum and Inasayama hill]

oh yes and the prize winner for today is Steven G from Vancouver (you have been contacted!)

This will likely be the last *Big* post for my trip.. I don't feel like I need a question today, please comment in whatever way you want .. also link for NHK world - the archive with a part including our trip will be online sometime .. also we're in a newspaper

65 years since Hiroshima

Today marks the 65th year exaclty since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.


Yesterday, I forgot my memory stick.. so no pictures from then. But basically I had a canadian students mid-tour defrief, went to Hiroshima castle (where dozens of huge right-winger trucks protested by basically making bad traffic) Visited Sadako's elementary school (the 1000 cranes leukemia victim), Walked in a park where victims saught refuge (a focus of Hiroshima, a book we read), met with the Mayor of Hiroshima himself (he was very nice), went to the RERF (Radiation effects research centre, which used to be the ABCC- atomic bomb casualty commision), and a Hiroshima Carps baseball game where we won with 4 runs (it was a special 'peace game' so there were some random intermissiony peace message things).


Today we attended the multi faith memorial service before getting seats in the crowd of a lot of people.. (I don't really know how many.. probably like 30 000? it might be online..). Here there were many guests and the UN secretary general was present and gave a speech. At the finishing of the mayor's speech, doves were released.












Again, this ceremony was huge not only becasue of the appearance of the US ambassador and other representatives from 70 countries, but also because nuclear disarment is at a very interesting time right now. After, we took a bus ride then on a boat to miyajima ferry. There was some fresh oysters, one of the 3 sights of japan (its a temple that becomes surrounded with water when the tide goes up), and many other things.





SUPER aggressive crazy deer too:

ok they don't look that bad.. but this is like right before this deer eats 3 people's map of Miyajima.

The rest of the afternoon was spent going to talk with past Mayor of Iwakuni to discuss US Air bases in Japan and looking at the Iwakuni air base. The issue of these bases is highly complicated but one thing is certain - the way Japan currently relates within itself and to the US when it comes to issues pertaining to these bases is not ideal (past prime minister of Japan stepped down because of this one issue).


Though the weather recently has been incredibly hot, I found it hard to complain today in light of the fireball of several million degrees created 65 years ago today. After the lantern ceremony, where lanterns are sent down the river to remember the souls of the people who were lost, I looked up into where about I thought the explosion was. Judging the height to be around 8 times that of a nearby building, I thought about how strong the blast must have been to have had maximum damage at just under 600 m. Hiroko was telling me about her family who experienced the blast and as I looked into the sky I began to feel for the people of this city deeply for the first time. I had a bit of an emotional breakdown so wasn't able to return with the rest of the group but instead stayed with one of the Student Coordinators until much later.


Though I've learned a lot about the atomic weapons and war in general these past few days, I have to say that this was the most meaningful time for me. I believe that if a time comes when we are no longer able to experience the human emotions associated with such a tragedy as this, it is this day that we lose part of what it means to be human.

Hiroshima

So now the trip has officially started since we're in Hiroshima! Here's a picture of me in Kyoto at jishu Jinja:



There are 2 stones here about 6 metres apart and apparently if you can make it from one stone to the other with your eyes closed, it is a sign that you will be fortunate in love. Those who need assistance in making the crossing will require an intermediary to help them find their mate. Somehow, I managed to make it all the way across (unlike some people we saw!).

When we arrived in Hiroshima, there were some TV people on the platform waiting for us (kindof weird hey?). They followed us around for the rest of the day but because I couldn't put up with being filmed awkwardly as I exited the station, I decided to film them back:

.. Lets see how they like that. Anyways we went to the museum and saw the place where people dedicate the peace cranes:

There were also thousands of people doing some kind of march while we were there:

And here is where the ceremonies will be later this week:

Our seminars today went well. One of my peace family members (having served in the army and having a POW grandfather) expressed his gratitude to our third speaker who discussed the dozen or so allied POWs who were hit by the hiroshima bomb. We also learned about the States and nuclear nonproliferation which might be happening less than people think and the role of the Korean forced labor hibakusha after the war.

Going to the museums, listening to the hibakusha, participating in the discussions, going to seminars sometimes feels like too much for me to think about and handle. I've been thinking though that even though this is the case, its really important to be listening and understanding from the hibakusha who will no longer be with us shortly.

today's winner is rachel from vancouver (yay!). You'll be contacted soon about the prize. In case people stuck thinking of things to comment about... let me know your opinions on the justification of the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs! I think that there are bits left out (or emphasized) depending on where you study, which makes collaboration with a number of different countries represented useful!

Stay in Kyoto!

Hey guys!

Things have been getting a bit interesting around here! Today we had some seminars and also some sightseeing in kyoto. My first seminar today was about this guy who basically thinks the use of the two atomic bombs by the US was both militarily unnecessary and morally unjustifiable as the entering of Russia into the war and changing of the surrender terms to allow the emperor to continue was what caused Japan to surrender. He said that the US had already proven it could destroy entire cities (100000 dead in Tokyo due to fire bombings in one day; Toyama 99.5% destroyed by area by bombings) and Japan’s navy, air force and army were all on the brink of defeat after the Saipan battle with Japan conducting studies on how to end the war. (I agree with him)

Anyways, (the other two seminars were “Martin Luther and the anti-nuclear Movement” and “New Forms of War, and Meaning of Nuclear Posture Review”) We also watched a documentary of the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs which was shown at the UN nuclear nonproliferation conference earlier this year (the producer must’ve done something right as UN secretary general purchased 2 copies of his DVD). It was also cool because we got to meet him later on in the day to ask questions about his movie.

I’m starting to realize more and more of what it means to be Canadian (Ironically as I spend time outside of Canada) as I find my role in this awesome mix of students with different backgrounds. Even within my own peace family as we have an activist, soldier, Japanese-war victim descendant, Japanese victim of war descendant, Japanese student with a bizarre tie to the west and Western student with a bizarre tie to japan (that’s me). Bridging the gap between American and Japanese students both linguistically (the other Canadian student and I have the best Japanese of the non-japanese) and culturally, I’m finding these last few days to be really interesting!

I’m starting to think that my ideas about the differences between the Japanese and Western school systems aren’t as crazy as I thought (see past blog post about my volunteer work at New Start) as I talk to more and more Ritsumeikan students about their experiences in high school. Yesterday I talked with some Japanese students late into the night while folding extra peace cranes (we want to make 2000) for the Hiroshima ceremony.

I also did some kyoto sightseeing with my group!

Tomorrow we will be going to hiroshima (and getting ready for the ceremonies!) Apparently this is when the tour actually starts so I`m looking forward to it!

Also since I didn`t get much of a response for the questions for the japanese school students here, I`m going to extend the question to today as well!

If you have any questions you want to ask the ritsumeikan students, please post below! they can be related to school, what we`re talking about related to the bombs, or life in general.

Hiroshima/Nagasaki trip Start!

Hey guys!

Soo a lot has happened since my last post! Yesterday I left Chiba and went to Tokyo station, where I had some lunch. I went to subway (eat fresh)! You can tell the food is fresh because… well they grow the vegetables inside the restaurant:

Anyways then I went on the Shinkansen (or bullet train – these fast trains connect most of Japan together under the JR or Japan rail system) to Kyoto.

In kyoto I met the head of a Buddhist organization for dinner (more on that later this month) before meeting up with my Canadian correspondent for the Hiroshima/Nagasaki trip. Unfortunately, the American students were held up at the airport because there was a suicide on the train line. The whole line was put to a halt for a couple hours as the police and JR line figured things out (suicides are fairly common in Japan with 33,000 reported every year and likely many more not).

The other 2 Canadian representatives and I decided to head to the Ritsumeikan dormitory before the American group arrived. We met student coordinators Wash and Mao (I got to know these Ritsumeikan students a little bit- they’re really cool!) and got into our rooms… The American University students arrived shortly after midnight- many of them had not been to Japan before so now they always come to me for help with various things related to Japan.

In the morning we went off to orientation. We got a brief outline of what this trip is about and also got to listen to everybody introduce themselves. This tour has an amazing combination of students- we’re divided into small groups for travel purposes called our ‘peace families’ . Let me introduce you to my peace family (from left to right):

Hiroko is our first local guide who is a Ristumeikan student from

Hiroshima studying business administration. Her great grandfather was working in a factory in downtown Hiroshima 65 years ago this Wednesday when the first nuclear bomb was dropped. Her grandfather was doing military training in a nearby prefecture and went to look for him the next day. However, his grandfather found neither his father nor any kind of remains.

Mei was born in New York, but moved to Osaka when she was only a baby. Now is an international relations major student at Ristumeikan University and she is our second local who will be our guide.

John is a History major student at AU (American university in Washington, DC). Before beginning studies there, he served with the US armed forces. He spent a year in Iraq, where he was an infantry soldier.

Linda is a phd student at Organ State University (History of Science) who walked 3200 miles across America in 1986 (took 9.5 months) in a march called the “great peace march for global nuclear disbarment”. She is very active in peace movements today.

Li is one of the three people on this trip from China. Currently, she is attending Asia Pacific University, where she studies business administration.

Then there’s me. I’m really excited to be getting to know this group more and more! Afterwards, we went for lunch in the university cafeteria then went to the Kyoto Museum for World Peace at the Ristumeikan University. I was impressed at the comprehensive covering that this university provided of the events in the last century. It seemed to me much different than a war museum or a memorial as instead of glorifying war or serving as a memorial, it encouraged viewers to move towards peace given the events that happened. It was very direct and explicit in stating some of the things that Japan did during the second world war (I was a little bit surprised at how direct some of these things were, such as descriptions of how militarism effected the way the school system functioned).

We went to two seminars in the afternoon. One was with a WWII veteran who was part of the Japanese army while the other was with koko kondo, who will be continuing the tour with us. This hibakusha (or a-bomb survivor) gave her testimony of being affected by the blast as well as her experiences with the ABCC (Atomic Bomb casualty commission) which conducted research on hibakusha. She went to the same school as Sadoko (who tried to fold 1000 cranes in the children’s storybook before she died of leukemia from radiation exposure) and described how her opinion on the crew of Enola Gay (the plane that dropped the bomb) has changed from hatred to sorrow.

We had a kick-off dinner before retiring to our rooms. (right now im borrowing internet from someone.. not sure when I can blog next!)

For discussion today, we will be continuing with part II of the series where you can post questions for local people. If anyone has any questions they would like to ask a local ristumeikan university student, please post them below. I will check the comments while I post my next blog so that 2 blog posts from now, I will answer your questions with their answers.

Also today’s draw winner is PAX from Vancouver. You`ll be contacted soon about your prize! I will also post details about NHK and the television showings (our trip specifically will be aired internationally). Also it looks like Yumiuri Shimbum, a japanese newspaper, will do a piece on our trip (the biggest newspaper in the world by circulation).