Hiroshima — 63 years after the atomic bombing

How could one not pay attention to Hiroshima’s inhabitants — those men and women, boys and girls in whose veins the blood of those poor survivors of the horrors of the atomic bombing flows? Perhaps this is my subjective opinion, but I found Hiroshima’s girls attractive in a special way — they possess soft moderate sophisticated beauty and noble manners. I understand that such an impression may be superficial, but that is what they seemed to me, whenever I unintentionally met some pretty face in the crowd.

Radiation?.. Fugu?..

Be aware of the fact that Japanese people, while setting out for a trip to other countries, arm themselves with personal gamma rays’ detectors. They have examined single grass, each tiniest corner in their own Hiroshima. This resulted in the lower level of radiation in the epicenter of nuclear bombardment than the average level of that all around Japan. It is hard to believe. However, that is the result of careful decontamination efforts, of consistent and effective environment enhancement by all possible scientific means. After getting to know Japanese people, it is no surprise that they have done it not just with the greatest care and according to regulations but also for a long-term perspective in view.

Hiroshima is the southernmost and one of the big cities I visited in Japan (including Miya Jima and its monkeys’ reserve — I’ll talk about it later considering that it’s a very small town).I was so impressed by the two days’ stay at Hiroshima, I don’t even remember (I didn’t even try to) the name of the hotel, where my Japanese friends — Fujito, the interpreter and Wedo, the journalist working for Kyoto Simbun and I stayed at. Neither do I remember the name of the Chinese restaurant, we went to have dinner after a long, and needless to say a tough excursion to a memorial museum complex.

So, about the museum, which we visited before even checking into the hotel — just after getting off the Shinkansen high-speed train which links most major cities on the islands of Honshū and Kyūshū. The museum is a whole different story. What did I experience after I had gotten myself familiar with the Kyoto Simbun’s cultural program and learned about the two days’ trip to Hiroshima? You see, I live in Kyiv. My family and I have not so long ago survived Chernobyl’s disaster as well as the visit to Khatyn’ in Belarus. So my idea about Hiroshima was something in between. I do not have problems with radio phobia, however, on the subconscious level at least when we were looking at the only building left after the bombing as it stood a few hundred meters from the hypocenter, walking around the museum with striking exhibits such as the watch that stopped, drawings by children, the music — the roar of the ominous American plane, I did feel something unpleasant. But…When we left the museum and the nearby park and found ourselves in the midst of the fuss and noise of Hiroshima streets, nothing was left inside me, associating this city with Chernobyl or Khatyn’.

I still do not understand why did my Japanese friends took me to…a Chinese restaurant? Perhaps, they thought that for a Ukrainian Chinese products were as exotic as the sun from which the name of Japan derives — the country of the rising sun? The official version was, however, that as a part of the program they wanted me to try their famous oysters. But it wasn’t the season. So, because sushi, crab soup, bamboo shoots, tuna fish (three kinds), chum salmon, rockfish etc., (including their famous lethally poisonous fugu!!!), as well as sea urchins were the closed chapter of my trip to Japan so to speak, that is something I had had much in the restaurants of Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Kobe, so we decided to try something of Chinese. I, however, was interested only in Japanese stuff. Their national cuisine thanks to its staggering colorfulness pushed aside all other things. Take Fugu for example! I’m talking about roasted Fugu fish, you know, the lethally poisonous fish which was cleaned and cooked by an undoubtedly skilled and certified chef. And nothing can be compared with a dinner in a crab restaurant (I’m talking about classical Japanese crabs) with the music of Kato, the only disadvantage being the fact that we had to sit on mats while eating!

Miya jima islet

I was so excited when I learned that Hiroshima was the only city in Japan that had street cars. Street cars were brought here from all over Japan at some moment in the past. Why? I couldn’t get a clear answer. They were brought because they were brought — was the answer. Just as a free will token. Although ill-wishers could have added some “nigger in the woodpile” to it — a kind of Gloucestershire’s kindness! Japanese had long ago got rid of this useless antiquity all over the country of the rising sun, except in Hiroshima.

In the same-name prefecture street cars have become not only a part of public transportation system, but also that of intercity. It was a street car that we took to get to the motor boat to bound for Miya Jima. Inside the vehicle everything was like in the good old times — a conductor,dressed in a uniform with colorful buttons, the bell to announce stops etc. I’m not going to describe the motor boat and the ropeway we took to get to the top of the Misen mountain — home to a colony of monkeys and a national park. It was raining and the monkeys hid themselves. We couldn’t see them even through the telescopes at the viewing point. And only when getting back on the ropeway could we spot a couple of those exotic creatures — horrible enemies to agriculture as my interpreter Fujita told me later. But in the town of Miya Jima there was a pleasant surprise waiting for us.

It turned out that unlike the outskirts of Hiroshima the oyster season on the island had not only began but was in its peak. So, we found a typical oyster restaurant and ordered those delicacy cockles. We had raw oysters, marinated oysters, boiled oysters, roasted oyster spiced with sophisticated specialized spices.

An old man drew our attention at the restaurant in Miya Jima. He was checking out at the cash register like an eager beaver, giving orders to waiters etc. He turned out to be an 81 years old father of the owner. His name was Oyashi. In such a way he helped the son and fought his old age with its adynamia and perforce passivity. Who is he? He is a former Kwantung army veteran. He just like my friend Fujita well remembers the war and does not want it to happen again. He likes working for his son and as well as his present status. What he’s interested in now is that oysters be enough in Hiroshima prefecture. After all that is their business.

We were in good spirit as we returned to Kyoto. I, personally, saw for myself that Hiroshima in Japan was not the worst place to live, rather one of the most interesting and picturesque as I was sincerely ashamed of my secret desire in the beginning to cross out this place from my trip to the country of the rising sun.