Golden Week: Bombs & Castles
After a long day taking on Kyoto, today we would have a slightly more relaxed day, seeing Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Himeji Castle. I was looking forward to seeing Himeji Castle, but a little more trepidatious about going to Hiroshima. The Museum often lands on the top lists of places to visit here in Japan, but I always had a suspicion it wouldn’t be a “fun” excursion per se.
We had a bit of a slower morning, then boarded the shinkansen and headed to Hiroshima. It took about an hour and a half to arrive, but I think we were all grateful for a longer train ride. My legs were especially sore after yesterday, so having a more spaced out day was nice.
Once we arrived in Hiroshima we got on a sightseeing bus, and took in the views as we made our way to the museum. It was surreal to know what had happened to this city, but look out the windows and see what appears to be a perfectly normal, lively city. At a glance, you’d never guess that less than 80 years ago 70% of this town’s buildings were destroyed and 25.7% to 41.5% of its population were killed.
Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945, not even 80 years ago. There are people who lived through that tragedy that are still alive today. Of course you learn about this part of history multiple times in school, but it’s a page or two at most in Canada. The history of this town was completely changed by that event, and so were the lives of those who were able to survive.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum really became a bit of a blur as I tried to really wrap my head around the weight of what happened. The digital recreations of the event, and photos of the destruction were hard to see, but manageable. It was when I started to hear the stories and see the photos of people impacted by this event that it really became difficult to bear.
I couldn’t help but think about the people I’d gotten to know during my time here in Japan. To see the faces of my students when seeing school children’s clothes scorched with burns. I got choked up several times while making my way through the exhibit, and I began to walk faster and faster as the weight grew harder to bear.
It might also be the timing of visiting the museum, as day after day I hear more about the events unfolding in Gaza. It’s a hard thing to reconcile, that I’m expected to live my normal day to day life while witnessing a documented genocide going on in the world. I thought about the lives that have already been lost, those who have been displaced, and how many more lives may be lost yet.
Often when we learn about history we want to believe that we are better than we once we were. We want to say that we’ve learned from history, and will never repeat the same mistakes. I too want that to be true. Yet we still have war. We still turn to bombs as solutions. We still have nuclear weapons that are magnitudes more devastating than the one used on Hiroshima.
It was a really difficult day for me. Not only is history cruel, but so is the present. It’s easy to feel hopeless or powerless when faced with such big realities. You wonder if history had to be that way, if there was another solution that could have been taken. You wonder about the present, how can you help those who are suffering now. It threatens to overwhelm you, to pull you under.
It took me a long time to shake off those feelings, not to forget them, but to not let them consume me. I still had a castle to see afterall. As people, we have to hold many truths at once. I was reckoning with unfathomable tragedy, past and present. I was also on vacation. I was with my family, and I wanted to make today a good memory. If anything, I wanted to be grateful for everything that I had, I’ve been privileged to never experience such tragedy first hand, and selfishly, I pray I never do.
We didn’t have too much time before we had to get back on the bus to head back to the train station. Everyone was getting hungry, and probably needed a bit of a pick me up after such a heavy topic, so we headed to 7-11. We’d passed through convenience stores briefly, but having a full meal really shows just how superior Japanese convenience stores are compared to back home.
We all found a different kind of meal to suit our tastes, even some snacks for my dad, warmed them up in the store, and chowed down outside. It was such a small thing, but it was exactly the kind of small thing that I needed. Sometimes your favorite memories are the small ones, just being somewhere alongside people you care about. When thinking about things too big to comprehend, it’s nice to hold onto something so small and present.
After a quick meal at the 7-11, we hopped back on the sightseeing bus and headed to the station. This next Shinkansen trip would be a shorter one, but it was nice to have a bit of time to decompress. Once we arrived at the station it was only around a 15 minute walk to the castle. It made for a nice stroll through the city, and I was looking forward to seeing the castle.
The castle was a stark white color, which was probably how it got the name Shirasagi-jō (white heron castle). I’d yet to visit a castle here in Japan, and Himeji castle definitely set a high bar! The castle felt like a maze of walls and interconnected smaller buildings. We slowly made our way up the winding path to the main keep.
The main keep was huge, with 6 floors and a basement, about 8 stories high. The main keep was generally used as a storehouse in peaceful times, and a fortified tower in times of war. It was mostly empty, but it was still very cool to see. I let my imagination fill in the empty space with warriors decked out in armor, preparing to fight an enemy army.
This was definitely one of those times when having an interest in Japanese media, like games or anime came in handy. The feudal period is often a popular setting for anime or games, and so I had at least an inkling of what this place might have been like when it was in use. There was some information about the castle on each of the floors, but it still did feel a little empty overall. It might have been tough to contextualize this huge castle without a bit of background knowledge.
Of course, this was a castle built in the feudal times, so climbing up and down the stairs got fairly taxing by the end. Even more so for my dad and brother in law who traded off carrying my nephew throughout the castle. The stairs got smaller and narrower the more we climbed, and I had to hunch quite a bit when going up and down between the floors. I couldn’t imagine living in such a huge space like this, I was tired just wandering around the castle.
This huge, imposing castle never saw battle, which I couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to try and take it. It would be a herculean effort to get through all the defenses and fortifications. It was likely meant to serve more as a deterrent primarily. It was weird contrasting this with Hiroshima, it made me sad that we used to use giant castles as deterrents of war, and now we stockpile world ending nuclear arms.
It was a bit of a weird day, it was filled with war and battle at both places, but Hiroshima was heavy, while Himeji felt light. Perhaps it was the scale of great tragedy vs a smaller force, or maybe the way those kinds of violence are depicted. Hiroshima, or world war 2 more broadly, is not a celebrated event. It may be used as the backdrop of some stories, but those stores tend to be dark and sad. Castles from the feudal era tend to be featured in stories about cool samurai, and show violence the audience can root for, like in a colosseum match or martial arts match.
I’d hesitate to say that overall it was a “fun” day, but it was memorable, and impactful. I didn’t come all the way to Japan just to have fun, though I’ve certainly been having plenty of it, I came to see new points of view, and broaden my horizons. I may have put off going to Hiroshima without my family coming to visit, but overall I’m glad that I went.
As unpleasant as it is, we can’t turn away from tragedy, both past and present. There are some days where I’m overwhelmed by everything happening in the world, and I want to turn away and escape into pleasant topics or media. By turning a blind eye though, we allow it to continue, we become passive, complacent. I don’t have all the answers, or know how to solve the world’s problems, but I don’t want to become ignorant to the world at large.
Give yourself grace, take care of yourself, but never give in.
So, on a slightly more melancholy note, my time in Osaka was once again coming to an end. Tomorrow we would travel to Tokyo, to have a few more days together exploring the city. This trip with my family was special for a lot of reasons, and I was glad to have them beside me when I grappled with such a difficult topic while visiting Hiroshima. In both the good and the bad, being able to count on your family feels more important than ever.
