No particular update schedule
Skothnet
  • Home
  • Gamesblog
  • Storyblog
  • Blogblog
  • Contact

Hiroshima

11/17/2014

0 Comments

 
This post was originally written on September 14, 2012.

Being a non-Asian foreigner in Japan is a strange experience. Everyone who looks at you knows that you aren't from around there. I remember once walking into a department store in Nagoya and knowing that there was a good chance that I was the only white person in the five-story building. Once, in the same department store, I was sitting on a bench in a small waiting area with a TV with a couple of friends, waiting for some other friends. After a short while, a Japanese man around 50 years old or so struck up a conversation with us. I don't remember much of the conversation, but I do remember that he told me that we were the first white people he'd ever talked to. I've heard that if you go to more rural areas of Japan, there's a decent chance that you'll be the first white person that they've ever seen. Throughout my travels in Japan, it seemed like the only place I wasn't a novelty was in Tokyo.

Every once in a while (and this really wasn't a very common thing), you'd meet someone who just didn't like foreigners. Japanese people aren't generally confrontational, and none of them would tell you that they didn't like you; they're even polite to you, albeit somewhat passive-aggressively. It's just something that you learn to pick up on after a while. I only ever saw outright racism once; a young man (25ish) wearing a shirt with a picture of Hitler heiling on it.

So it didn't really come as any major surprise to me that when I mentioned to other foreigners that had been to Hiroshima that I was going there for a day, they told me that I would get dirty looks. Naturally, since Hiroshima was the site of the first atomic bomb being used on people, there are a lot of memorials and museums about the subject. They aren't exactly uplifting. One of my friends who had previously been there told me that a woman on the cable car looked at him like he had killed her baby. After hearing these stories, I started thinking about what I would do if a Japanese person confronted me about it. I had a little speech that I'd gone over a few times in my head. The crux of it was boku wa boku no ojiisan ja arimasen: I am not my grandfather. Obviously, my grandfather didn't drop the bomb; he didn't even fight in World War II. It was a metaphor that I was fairly certain would get my point across.

When I finally went to Hiroshima, the first place that I visited was Shukkeien, a park designed in 1620 that had been rebuilt after being almost completely destroyed by the A-bomb. A large number of survivors took refuge there after the bombing, but died before receiving medical attention, and their ashes were scattered in the park. Afterward, I walked around the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. There are many memorials in the park, including an eternal flame, a children's memorial, and a peace bell. The most striking thing there, though, is the remains of the only building to withstand the blast of the atomic bomb. It's an impressive and sad place. There is a small plaque in front of it that mentions that it "expresses the spirit of Hiroshima - enduring grief, transcending hatred, pursuing harmony and prosperity for all, and yearning for genuine, lasting world peace," but looking at the building, it's hard to see anything else other than tragedy. Even though there are plaques like that all throughout the park, all with the same message that the solution to this tragedy is peace, not hatred, I begin to understand why my friends got dirty looks. I don't think that my friends deserved the looks they received, or that the people giving the looks shouldn't have known better, but I can understand why they were angry, even if that anger was misplaced.

So, there I was, walking alone through the Peace Park, marveling at the incredible pathos of the place, thinking about war and death and emotional wounds, when an old man sitting on a bench motions for me to come over to talk to him. My heart skips a beat. The man looks old enough to have fought in the war. Does he resent me? When he looks at me, does he see the men who killed his friends? Does he see the men who dropped the bomb? All of the defenses that I've prepared rush from my head. I'm not ready for this.

I walk over.

He asks me if I like baseball. I don't, really, but I understand the significance of the question. Baseball was one of the first and most significant cultural bridges between America and Japan. During the postwar occupation of Japan, American soldiers taught Japanese people how to play baseball. A lot of the soldiers didn't speak a word of Japanese, and the baseball games were a way for them to bond with the Japanese people. They learned that Japanese people aren't bloodthirsty savages, and the Japanese people learned the same thing about the Americans. Baseball is still the most popular foreign sport in Japan. So I tell him that I like to play baseball with my friends, but I don't really watch professional baseball.

We talk for a little while, branching off of the baseball conversation. After he learns that I like the Yankees (even though I don't really follow them), he asks where I'm from, and we talk for a little while about that, and how I first got interested in Japan. There are a lot of small, awkward pauses that reveal that neither of us really knows what to talk to the other about, but we each appreciate that the other wants to talk. After we run out of things to talk about, we just sit there for a few minutes. Eventually, I decide to leave, telling him that I'm happy he talked to me.

On my way back to the hotel, I pass by the peace bell. It's already evening, and the ram that lets you ring the bell is locked up for the night, so I flick it instead, and listen to the deep, quiet sound that it makes.
0 Comments

Trouble In Cape Town

11/17/2014

0 Comments

 
Originally written on September 13, 2012.

South Africa. Cape Town. Within my first few days, the lady working for the organization who got me my internship gives me a brief orientation over drinks at the cafe downstairs. I don't remember all of what she told me, but I do remember the safety tips. Don't go out alone at night. Don't walk any long distance at night, even in groups. Don't carry a lot of money. Those were pretty easy tips to follow. Later, my roommate added another one: if someone asks you for change, ignore them. My bosses, who, by the way, started a social enterprise based on improving the lives of the less fortunate, agreed. One of them told me, "if someone asks you for money, just give them a very firm 'No,' and walk away."

On the way from my apartment to the supermarket, there were always people asking for change. There was a day hospital that must have had some kind of charity, because there were always homeless, relatively elderly people lined up outside of it with their blankets. One of the first times that I made the trip to the supermarket, a youngish guy who looked a little bit too well off to be begging for change held out a cup and asked for money as I was walking under an overpass. Everything that I'd been told kicked in, and I gave him a firm no, walked a little faster, and kept an eye on him as I went. He let me go without issue.

On another trip to the same supermarket, an older, more homeless-looking man sitting outside of a gas station asked me for change, and I instinctively gave him the firm no. Afterward, I thought about it and felt bad, because the man clearly hadn't been going to mug me. It bothered me that I had instinctively refused him out of fear, because he clearly needed the money, and I set some change aside and vowed to give it to him on the way back. Unfortunately, he wasn't there by that time. I learned from that, and later gave to multiple beggars without incident. Just in case, though, I'd never linger; I'd just give them the money and keep walking. At most, I'd say "sure" when they thanked me.

One day, I was leaving the Nando's that I had eaten lunch at, and someone asked me for change. It was on Adderley Street, one of Cape Town's busiest streets, so I didn't feel nearly as nervous as I usually would on the way to the supermarket, and I knew that I had some change in my pocket from lunch that I wouldn't have to open my wallet to take out. There were two guys, one of which was holding a nearly empty plastic pitcher. As they walked towards me, I saw the lady at the flower stand that they were leaving shaking her head at me. That, in conjunction with the fact that they were young and that there were two of them, should have sent up red flags for me, but in the two seconds that it took for them to walk up to me, all I thought was that I didn't have to take out my wallet, and that the lady probably disapproved of giving to beggars like so many other South Africans do.

I dropped a few Rand into the pitcher, and kept walking. The two of them kept pace with me, one on either side. The guy holding the pitcher was on the left, and he did all the talking. "Hey, c'mon, man, you can give more than that." I told him sorry, that was all the change I had. "Tell you what, there's an ATM in that store to the left. You can take out 10 or 20* [Rand]." I said, no, sorry, I've really got to get back to work. "Look, we're asking for money because we don't want to steal..." I don't say anything, but keep walking. "I could just reach into your pocket..." he says, as he starts reaching into my left pocket. That day was one of the few days that I had decided to bring my iPod with me, and my left pocket is where I kept it. Half out of instinctive protection of my it, and half out of blind anger, I swat his hand away, run a few steps forward to get some distance between me and them, and angrily shout, "Get the fuck away from me!" It takes them by surprise, and by the time they realized what's happened, everyone in a 20 foot radius is staring at us. As they realize that they can't do anything, and their faces go from surprise to disappointment, they slink away. I go to that Nando's a lot, but I never see them again.

I was never afraid. I probably should have been. At least one of them probably had a knife. All I was was angry. I still get angry whenever I think about it. Every day in Cape Town, I'd see people who needed money, and every day I'd see people who were afraid to give it to them. All because of stupid pieces of shit like the guys that tried to mug me. Because of them, people who really need money and aren't willing to hurt people for it are going hungry. When people are willing to give money, they get mugged, and most learn not to try again. Not all muggings are clean. Sometimes people get stabbed for trying to help someone else out. I can barely even begin to relate to the kind of asshole that would rather rob a person willing to give them money than a person who wouldn't give them a cent. Not only are they screwing over people who had wanted to help them; they're also screwing over all of the people that that person would have helped in the future. Sometimes, I wish I had been carrying a knife myself. It's probably a good thing for both me and them that I hadn't.

In case you're wondering, I kept giving change to people, but I was more careful about it after that. At one point, near the end of my time in Cape Town, I gave a homeless man a sleeping bag that I'd gotten for free as part of participating in some event. The guy was ecstatic. Couldn't stop telling me how thankful he was and about how he really needed one of these; the blankets that the charities give out don't help in the rain, and don't do much in the cold, either. I saw that he wasn't just happy to have a new sleeping bag; he was happy that there are people out there that are still willing to give away sleeping bags. Part of me was happy to see his faith in humanity restored. Part of me was angry that it had needed to be.

*At the time, about $1.50-3.00, which goes a little further in South Africa than it does in America, but what's worrying here is that he was asking me to go to an ATM to get him bills
0 Comments

    Archives

    October 2020
    November 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    Archives By Title
    Fiction
    Non Fiction

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.