Touring Japan (4) Nagasaki

Nagasaki: “The most casual city I have visited in Japan”

The visit to Nagasaki didn’t have the same effect that Hiroshima had on me… strange… but true… I believe this is due to several reasons as follows:

1. Maybe all the excitement I had in Hiroshima affected my trip to Nagasaki… it was another city that I knew it has suffered a lot of the atomic bomb effects but I think the experience of Hiroshima has moved me more than that of Nagasaki because I have visited it first.

2. The city is not as clean as Hiroshima.

3. The landscape at the outskirts of the city is so beautiful but inside the city the inhabited mountains made me have a sense that the city is extremely crammed.

4. The people were more casual than the rest of the places I have visited.

5. The layout gives you a sense of western influence, especially with many English signs next to the Japanese language.

6. The trams looked old, although nothing here is older than 50 or 60 years maximum.

7. The hotel I stayed in was by far the worst in cleanliness… the room was old and shabby… it reminded me with motels in the US along the highways when the rooms were closed for a long time… so they looked clean when you first enter, then you find dust everywhere and some smelly stuff because of the humidity and lack of usage… the bed sheets were clean though thank god for that… but the carpets had old stains.

8. The way from Hiroshima to Nagasaki by train was formidable… the sea, the islands, the green mountains were just amazing… but I had a sense that moving further to the south was like moving from a developed world to a developing one… I am here comparing cities of Japan to each other and not those of a developed country to a developing one.

9. The rural areas on the way reminded me much of the GDR part of German rural areas…and cars here were not Mercedes or Ferraris like the north, they were mostly the small economic cars which to an extent expose the level of wealth of the people in these areas of Japan.

Deijama Factory and Dutch influence:

Amazing that I have found on a train “Huis Ten Bosch”… I was wondering where am I? having lived in Holland for years… I believe it is amazing that they have found their way up until the shores of Nagasaki in Japan… the factory at Deijama showed how the Dutch workers used to do the job… it was a simple factory and an old building but it was nice to visit and take pictures of the development of coffee makers… not bad huh!

The 12 Saints Memorial and the Chinese Temple:

This is the first city that I have seen some influence of Christianity in Japan… the influence is not on the people… you don’t feel it… but I have seen here a Japanese Christian nun for example… didn’t see that anywhere else.

I have seen few churches in different places, including Tokyo and Yokohama… but they are not lavish or big like those in Egypt or Europe for example…

The memorial was built to commemorate the killing of 12 catholic saints that were sent to Japan as missionaries and they were found and slaughtered in that spot after the issuance of a legislation outlawing Christianity… the place is on top of a slope and overlooks the port from far and the Big silver Buddha structure on another slope few blocks away from the memorial gives one a feeling of everything that is blending in in modern Japan.. the Buddha statue is huge and the temple next to it was all of wood and carved with colourful flowers.. I read that it was one of the Chinese temples that were erected between 1623 and 1629 by a Chinese Monk who stayed in Nagasaki.

The visit to the Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Site:

The park, the statues and the site were very nicely preserved… there was a part that has some construction and on the banners of the site… I assume it was apologizing for the inconvenience with a picture of a construction worker bowing… I couldn’t resist taking a picture of it.
The site of the bombing is now a park above the ground level of the day of the bombardment … it is amazing that with the level of destruction that took place in that place it has turned to be so serene and beautiful… especially that, regardless of the fact that it is in the middle of inhabited area… you barely feel anything rather than the park and the green mountains around it.

The Atomic Bomb Nagasaki Museum:

The thing that definitely has left a mark was stepping into the hall with parts of remaining façade of a church, some rubbles and ruins of different buildings and a bridge… the light effect that was installed make it feel so gloomy when one first steps in.. it was more like meant to leave a mark on the visitor… the stories were also sad and the pictures horrendous… but the museum itself was much smaller than that of Hiroshima.

What I didn’t comprehend… since I studied and read about nuclear bombs and their effects… how can someone in their clear mind take a decision to bombard a city or even test the effects of using the bombs on human beings…is that why they call themselves humane and from the first world? The decision was taken to bomb japan rather than germany for obvious reasons.. the easiest one is the proximity of germany to other territories of the allies.. Churchill wouldn’t have taken the risk that they will be touched even slightly with radiation…so he and Roosevelt chose a faraway spot to test the bombs… that is why 2 different types were used… uranium and plutonium based weapons… Truman went ahead with the decision although Japan was going to give up anyways… and the war would have come to an end to the benefits of the allies… but showing the world who is no.1 force in the world was more important than carrying for the collateral damage that will be caused… it reminds me with Madeline Albright when she said the death of the Iraqi children was merely a collateral damage to the war and it was unavoidable … actually it was unavoidable to destroy Iraq rather than saving it from Saddam or rebuilding it as a democracy… oil was and still is more important than the human loss for them.

The other thing that struck me while in Nagasaki and reading further about the Korean and Chinese workers who were brought to Japan in a form of slavery… the Japanese kids that were forced to leave schools and join the forces or factories… all that for what? Is it for the aspiration of the few to become dominant? I wonder if anyone asked the kids if they wanted to go to war… or even why they are going to the war… and if they agree to be dragged into it… I keep joking of the Masonic plans to rule the world and conspiracies to dominate the power… but in a recycling of governments since the dawn of history… the humankind has suffered the aftermath of war, sometimes it might be justified for the scarcity of main resources for survival… but mostly, it was not and is not the case… strategies of superpowers, the will of the might, the fear of any rising rivals to the strength of the forceful states make them willing to do anything to preserve this power.. . they are willing to spare even part of their own population in order to keep their domination in the balance of power in the world… and we the regular citizens of the world are the abused through control, be it be force, intimidation, using ethnicity, religion, colour, race, emotions… anything that politicians use in order justify their actions in order to keep the power… Machiavelli was definitely right… aims justify the means… I guess he was stating a fact rather than building a theory… the PRINCE wants to remain a PRINCE… and he will do anything to preserve that position.