The 2006 School Trip, Day Two

Ahhhh...it's a nice, beautiful, clear morning. If only it weren't f*****g 5:00 a.m.!!!!! Our schedule calls for an early enough waking time, but the kids are already banging and thumping all around us like there's a judo competition in progress or something. All last night they used an elaborate series of signals including coded taps on the balcony rail, slippers placed in front of doors, and scouts to let each other know which room was the party room and evade our all-seeing teacher eyes. That meant we kept ourselves busy until late breaking the codes and thwarting them.

I guess this ridiculously early wake-up alarm thumping is their revenge.

Breakfast is broiled clams, breaded pork cutlets, and fried eggs. Once again they are trying to torment me out of my diet...or make me have a stroke and die young, one of the two. (Honestly. I’ll never figure out why a nation like Japan, whose culture has had a strong Buddhist influence since antiquity, has become so carnivorous. It used to be that meat was a rare treat. Now it is almost impossible to avoid. Then again, I guess the ancient, pre-Buddhism Yamato people ate lots of wild boar, so perhaps the culture has come full circle.)



The boat ride back to the mainland is pleasant. The bus ride to the Peace Park is pretty much the same way it is every time.



This is my seventh visit to the Hiroshima Peace Park and my third time with a hibakusha (A-bomb survivor) guide giving us an informative tour. Even after six visits, the impact hasn't lessened a bit. I won't bother commenting on it yet again. I'll just say that it never ceases to amaze me just how cruel human beings can be to each other if they think they have enough of a cause to justify it. It's even more frightening how people can be so cruelly indifferent.

My group's hibakusha guide this year is a rather funny, old man who (unlike last year's) is actually able to speak and make himself heard. He has a tendency to stammer a bit, making him a bit tedious to listen to, but it's amazing how he can tell us something positively shocking and then smile and say very casually, "Say, why don't we all squeeze into the shade of that tree over there? We can still see what I'm talking about AND we won't have to get sunburned, either!"

I don't know, though...perhaps his carefree manner (and stammering) has a negative effect on the listeners. Either that or it's just the group I'm with. They divided each class into odd and even student numbers. I got stuck with the odd numbers, and I definitely seem to have gotten the oddballs. Even so, it never ceases to amaze me how the students' reaction to Hiroshima seems so out of sync with their personalities. Two years ago I was here with the most spoiled, childish, and self-centered group of punks I'd ever had the misfortune of suffering, but (with the exception of one hopeless basket case) they listened to the hibakusha tale so intently and were so deeply moved that most of them were in tears and one fainted. Last year the kids were good as gold...and they showed no reaction to it at all...if they even tried to listen (which is doubtful). This year? Well, they're very friendly and good-natured kids, even affectionate, but they're a bit on the spoiled side (to put it mildly). They listen to the hibakusha lecture well enough, but as soon as the old man stops talking they launch into a mass of giggles. Sparkly, spunky, but rather spoiled Ms. MM listens as the man tells casually of losing his father to the war and being raised by his mother only to have the A-bomb completely wipe out his home, family, and all his possessions, and then she starts bubbling over how pretty the roses in a nearby memorial garden are...and then sweetly tries to talk me into letting her pick a couple. (No, I don't smack her one, but I admit I'm sorely tempted.) After a while our token human mountain, huge Mr. MO (Yes, he's a rugby player.) starts making annoyed faces and very theatrically leaning on another boy's shoulder and pretending to sleep. Others seem to share the same sentiment.



At the end if the tour/lecture Ms. MM moves up beside me and asks quietly, "Sensei, have you really been here seven times?" I answer in the affirmative, whereupon her lip curls, and she asks, "And you've had to go through listening to this every time?"

I reply that I've only had the hibakusha tour three times, and I add that it has been different every time. That sets her off into another one of her cute, theatrical, and kind of baffling displays of total silliness.

At least I'm not really getting The Look this year...though I almost wish I were...

After that we go through That Museum, something I dread but go through as a moral duty every time. As always, it is packed full and hard to get around in. Interestingly, there appears to be a whole group of Indians (as in India) there. One of the multi-lingual displays urging the discontinuation and elimination of nuclear weapons is set in Arabic. The various displays are as shocking as ever. Now the kids can't even pretend not to be affected. I'm finally starting to get The Look, but surprisingly, some of the girls in my homeroom actually come up to me and ask me with genuine concern if I'm alright. That's a surprise. Nothing like that has ever happened before.

One of them asks me if, after having seen it all so many times, it gets any easier. No f*****g way.

We're given a much-needed break after that. I go and sit on a park bench (bum ba-bum) eyeing little girls with bad int...er...relaxing. (Sorry, Ian…) It is then that I get yet another new experience. A couple of boys approach me and start speaking to me in English that they're reading off a prompt sheet. I think they're students doing one of those "interview a gaijin" things I’ve faced so many times. Actually, they are Jehovah's Witnesses, and I get Watchtowered. Oh, well. It's something to read and think about while I'm waiting. (It starts out, "Look at the happy people on the cover. Wouldn't you like to be one of them?" After that most of it is along the lines of what I already hear from evangelicals that I know. However, I have to wonder why they changed the cross into a "torture stake"...)

After that we go to lunch. Of course, it's the local specialty: Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (kind of like a cross between a pancake and pizza). The difference is that, whereas Osaka-style is all mixed together in a bowl, poured onto a griddle, and fried, Hiroshima-style is cooked in layers. It's absolutely delicious, but since the main ingredients include fried eggs, pork, and squid, I'm not exactly helping my diet...

After that we're back on the shinkansen (bullet train) for the trip up to Kyoto, where we have only to check into our hotel and have dinner. Before we leave, however, there's time for a little shopping at Hiroshima Station. So...do I buy all kinds of local specialties? No, no, nooo, no! I stumble on a nice, little import shop and walk out of there with Lay's potato chips, cake mix, cookies, M&Ms, and a nice, cold can of A&W root beer to enjoy while I’m waiting.


(Not my picture...sorry...)

In Kyoto we're staying at the converted Zen temple Shogoin-Gotenso (聖護院御殿荘) again. Dinner, naturally, is in a very traditional style and is fantastic!!!!

After dinner is something new and interesting. As I said, this "hotel" is actually a temple. We're going to have our first experience trying out zazen (Zen meditation). When I first heard they were planning to do this I thought it had to be a joke. Try to get 150+ spastic teenagers to assume a meditative position and sit quietly for any length of time? It ain't gonna happen!

Well, it happens. The kids are surprisingly eager. Not only do they listen to the priest's talk very intently, but they do the zazen thing (Actually, in this temple's sect they call it "shikan" (止観), which literally means to stop looking) complete with priests walking around whacking people on the back with sticks if their posture is wrong or if they move. I do it myself, and it's amazingly refreshing. I become aware of everything that is going on around me at once, every vibration, every sound, every back getting smacked. I keep expecting one of the priests to give me the tap so that I can invite him to whack my back (and then thank him), but I come through safe. We go through it twice. The first time it feels like we've been meditating for three minutes, and we're all shocked to hear that it was actually seven. The second time feels like four minutes but is actually fifteen! The kids are so amazed they want to do it some more, and when we don't several of the students (mainly girls) line up so they can have a turn at getting their own backs whacked!

I'm tempted to try it, too, but I don't. It's bath time (by myself in that wonderful-smelling cypress-wood bath), followed by lights-out patrol time, followed by another staff meeting, followed by beer, followed by bed.

I'm beat...