From there, I decided to walk the mile or so to the Peace Memorial Park. It was a very pleasant walk despite the constant rain. At least it wasn't raining as hard as earlier.
Before walking around the park, and seeing the atomic bomb dome, and various monuments, the first location that I found in the park was the Museum. There were two things that I noticed very quickly. One was that the admission price was only 50 yen, which is equivalent to about 50 cents. For such a popular location, I know that they could charge more, but perhaps they want to make it so everyone who wants to can attend. The second thing that I noticed is that throughout Japan, this is where I saw the largest concentration of non-Japanese people. Everywhere I looked there were faces from different parts of the world.
Entering the museum, I knew that I would become emotionally overwhelmed with different descriptions and exhibits that I would see. There were the obvious wall mounted essays describing the lead-up and after-effects of the atomic bombing. However, three really stuck of for me. The first was the photographs of the child named Sadako who died of leukemia about a decade after the bomb, and folded a thousand paper cranes as prayers for her survival. I first encountered her story through a children's book as a school teacher, and seeing photos of her face, and being reminded that she was a real human being (and not simply a children's book character) reminded me of my own mortality.
The second exhibit that astonished me was something that I did not even know existed. Since the atomic bombing, every mayor of Hiroshima has sent letters to leaders around the world condemning them each and every time their country tests nuclear weapons. Being American, and thus exposed to American news media, I figured that these letters would have tapered off in the last couple of decades, except in the case of Iran and North Korea. However, I was shocked to learn that the most recent letter, sent in May 2013 was to Barack Obama. My own ignorance had informed me that there was a nuclear weapons test ban treaty signed by many nations. However, a little research will reveal that it is only a partial ban, and America has consitently been testing such nuclear weapons underground (which is allowed by the treaty). Although I am not one to usually be taken up by politics, something about this made me furious inside. I overheard a girl ask her boyfriend why countries still have nuclear weapons. Practically minded as males sometimes are, he responded that they serve as a deterrrent; if I have nukes, you will not attack me because you will know what is coming. To which she replied in an innocent way that girls sometimes are, "I would rather have no nukes, because then why would anyone attack me?" In my mind, I responded with, "To kill you and steal your stuff."
The last artifact that left an emotional impression on me was the block of concrete from a building upon which the atomic bomb blast left a shadow of the person sitting on a step. Something about the nature of this everlasting imprint of a human being, perhaps unique in human history, made me loose my breath. Some men try to leave an immortal mark on the world with a beautiful painting; some with an eloquent piece of music; others with their ideas or conquests or something else. This man left a shadow on a block of stone as his body was instantly annihilated.
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