SEMESTER AT SEA - JAPAN

 

Email #9 -April 23, 2002

 

            This is the ninth report on my experiences teaching in Semester at Sea, on a semester-long voyage around the world.  I am emailing by satellite from the ship.  This report discusses temples and shrines in Nara and Kyoto, cranes and resilience in Hiroshima, the last day in port in Osaka, and crossing the Pacific Ocean to Seattle.

 

TEMPLES AND SHRINES IN NARA

            I was looking forward to visiting Japan again.  But I felt sad as we entered the harbor at Osaka.  I was thinking about my friend Masa, who had died in a motorcycle accident in Japan shortly after visiting me in Los Angeles.  I had met him nine years ago on a summer exchange program at Obirin University in a suburb of Tokyo.  I had spent two weeks in Tokyo, giving seven lectures at Obirin, and six weeks traveling around Japan with a rail pass staying at youth hostels. 

            After docking in Osaka, I took my wife and son by train to Nara, which I had visited before.  We went there on our own instead of taking a tour since I knew that the major sites were all within walking distance of the train station.  Nara had been the ancient capital of Japan before Tokyo, and has some beautiful temples and shrines.  Most are in a park in which deer roam freely since deer are sacred animals.  Also in the park are hundreds of Japanese junior high school students who go on fieldtrips all over Japan to learn about their culture.  They often stop Americans to practice their English, asking a few questions given them by their teachers.  They then want to take a photo with you.  They are amazed by my height, and I always enjoy interacting with them.

            First we saw the Five-Storied Pagoda at the Kofukuji Temple.  Pagodas are places to hold bones of Buddhist "saints" and were derived from Stupas in India.  Then we walked north to the Todaiji Temple, which is the world's largest wooden structure.  It contains a bronze Buddha which is 53 feet tall.  When Buddhism originated in India, Buddha was considered to be an exemplary human, not a god; you do not pray to him because he cannot help you.  That form of Buddhism is called Theravada and still exists in Sri Lanka. But when Buddhism was brought to China, another form of Buddhism developed called Mahayana. In that tradition people believe that Buddha and others called Bodhisattvas can help you, and therefore people pray to them and give devotional offerings to them. When Buddhism was brought from China to Japan through Korea, other forms of Buddhism developed including Zen Buddhism, which emphasizes simplicity, meditation on riddles, and insight.

            Behind the Todaiji Temple we walked up the hill to the Nigatsudo Hall for a view of the valley below. Then we walked south to the Kasuga Shrine.  It is one of the most famous Shinto shrines in Japan.  Shinto is an ancient religion in which people believe that all of nature is inhabited by spirits.  In developmental psychology we learn that children go through a stage of animism, in which they believe that everything is alive.  This is part of their learning about cause and effect; they figure out that things happen because people make them happen, and they believe that all of nature works the same way.  In Shinto, trees and rocks and water all have Kami (spirits), similar to the Greek and Roman gods of thunder, oceans, etc.  Additional Kami are spirits of ancestors, who need to be worshiped and given offerings to keep them appeased. 

            Shinto shrines usually have a Tori (gate) in front that is painted vermilion (orange red).  They also have a twisted thick rope hanging up across the shrine, which marks the boundary between sacred and secular space.  In addition to large shrines, there are many tiny shrines in parks all over Japan.  Shintoism and Buddhism co-exist, and many Japanese believe in both.  Births and weddings are celebrated in Shinto shrines, while funerals are held in Buddhist temples.  There are many Shinto festivals in which small shrines are carried through the streets. 

            Another aspect of Shintoism is the belief that the Emperor is descended from the sun goddess.  This was used during World War II to encourage devotion to the emperor, including kamikaze pilots who crashed their planes onto enemy targets. Kamikaze means spirit wind, and originally referred to a typhoon that turned back a Chinese naval attack in the 1300s.  After World War II, the emperor was forced by the U.S. to renounce his divinity when the U.S. imposed a democratic constitution.

            On the way back to the train station we had dinner and explored a shopping arcade.  When we stopped for dessert in a small cafe we met an expat (expatriate, as Americans living abroad are called).  He had been teaching English in Japan for many years and had married a Japanese woman.  It is relatively easy for native speakers of English to get jobs teaching English in Japan since there is a strong desire to learn English.  A good friend of mine did that for many years, and a couple of my former students are doing that now.

            When we got back to the port in Osaka, we wanted to explore the mall in the port, but only one store was open.  It was the Sega game arcade, which had not only video games but also video slot machines and a life-size video blackjack dealer appearing on a large screen across from a table displaying cards on video! 

            On my way to the ship I encountered a couple of students talking to a couple of American sailors who were not in uniform.  They were from the Blue Ridge, the flagship for the U.S. 7th Fleet, which carries commanding officers and communications equipment.  They had stopped in 13 countries during the past three months, and many were the same as the 10 ports we had stopped in but on different days.  However, they had not stopped in Vietnam since no U.S. military ships are allowed to dock there.  When it was announced on our ship that the Blue Ridge would be nearby with 1000 sailors, many women on our ship were very interested since there are about 450 women and only 150 men on our voyage.  I learned later that some of the women had hooked up with the sailors as well as with Americans and Australians who were working at the Universal Studios theme park that just opened in Osaka last year. 

 

TEMPLES AND SHRINES IN KYOTO

            The next day we took a fieldtrip to Kyoto.  I knew it would be more efficient to get around Kyoto by tour bus than by walking since I had done the latter before.  I remembered hurrying for an hour in the rain to see a temple with a Zen rock garden before it closed and didn't want to repeat that experience. It rained again this time, so I was very glad that we were on the bus! 

            Kyoto is a beautiful city with many temples, shrines, and old wooden houses.  Unlike many other Japanese cities, it wasn't heavily bombed during World War II.  First we went to Rokuonji, the Golden Pavilion. It was originally built as a residence for the Shogun (military ruler) before Admiral Perry sailed to Japan and forced Japan to open up to trade with the U.S. in 1853. For two hundred and fifty years prior to that time Japan had been isolated, which allowed it to develop its own culture distinct from the cultural elements brought to it in 800 AD by Buddhist priests from China and Korea.  The failure of the Shogun to defend against the Americans led to his downfall, and the restoration of the power of the Emperor, who modernized Japan by bringing in engineers from the U.S. and Britain to develop industries and rail service.

            At Ryunji Temple we saw the Zen Rock Garden that I had rushed to see nine years before.  It has 15 rocks surrounded by gravel and is the most famous Zen garden in Japan.  I wasn't very impressed with it before and still wasn't.  I much prefer other gardens in Japan that include greenery and water.

            I was glad that the tour included the impressive Sanju-sungen Temple.  It has 1001 statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy.  Each life-size statue is carved of wood and covered with gold, and has 25 arms (each representing 40 arms for a total of 1000 arms).  They are housed in a long pavilion, with 24 carved wooden guardians representing Buddhist figures derived from Hindu gods.

            Next was the Heian-jinju Shinto shrine where we were drenched from the downpour, even though we were wearing raincoats or carrying umbrellas.  Finally at the Kiyomizu Temple, which is perched on the side of a hill, we had a view of the city.  There we encountered more junior high school students, as we had at every temple and shrine, but there was one who was about six feet tall!

 

CRANES AND RESILIENCE IN HIROSHIMA

            When we got back to the ship, my wife, son, and I quickly changed into dry clothing then took the subway to the Shin-Osaka train station.  There we boarded a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima.  We covered a distance of more than 200 miles in one and a half hours including three stops along the way!  While waiting for a bus in Hiroshima we saw a group of students from the ship who had gone to Hiroshima by train on a tour; we had gone on our own since it fit our schedule better and I had been there before. We took the bus to a youth hostel north of downtown overlooking the city.  There we encountered three more students from the ship who had also gone there on their own.

            The next day we took a bus downtown to see the Peace Park.  The park is at the epicenter of where the first atomic bomb was dropped.  There are various monuments in the park, including one to the 20,000 Koreans who had died in the blast, who had been brought to Japan for forced labor during the war.  The most poignant was the Children's Monument, with statues of three children and cabinets containing thousands of paper cranes.  There was a 12-year old girl who had leukemia from the atomic blast and who believed that if she made 1000 paper cranes she would be cured.  She made 1300 cranes but still died, and her story inspired school children all over the world to raise money for a Children's Monument and to make paper cranes to hang there.  While we were there a group of Japanese students brought cranes and hung them in a cabinet.  We also saw a poster from a Girl Scout troop in the U.S.

            There is another monument containing the names of the 140,000 persons killed instantly in the blast.  An equal number died later of radiation poisoning or cancer.  A few survivors are still living in Japan, the U.S., and other countries. 

            The Peace Museum now has an exhibit in the East wing that wasn't there nine years ago.  It finally tells why the atom bomb was dropped, and why Hiroshima was selected.  Hiroshima was the center of the military command in Japan, and one of the few cities that hadn't already been firebombed.  Actually, more people had been killed in the firebombing than in the atomic blast, but not all at once.  The museum said that the U.S. dropped the bomb for three reasons.  The first was to save American lives.  This is true -- the U.S. had planned to invade Japan, and expected that half a million U.S. soldiers would die as a result.  The second was to end the war before Russia invaded Manchuria, to maintain U.S. dominance; this is probably true too.  The third was to see if the bomb worked and what effect it would have.  This is also probably true.  The uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima had not been tested.  The plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki two days later had been tested in New Mexico.

            Although the second atom bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki was not discussed in this museum, we had discussed these issues in the CORE course on the ship before we arrived in Japan.  After the first atom bomb had been dropped, the Japanese still refused to surrender, thinking that the U.S. only had one bomb and that they could win the war before another could be built.  But after the second bomb was dropped, Japan immediately surrendered.

            The west wing of the Peace Museum contains exhibits about the effects of the atomic blast.  A huge area of the city was instantly incinerated, with only a few remnants of buildings left.  One of those buildings has been kept as a reminder of the effects of the bomb.  The museum has clothing and personal effects that had belonged to junior high school students who had been tearing down old housing to create a firebreak between sections of the city.  It was this clothing that had gotten to me the last time I was there, and I had that in mind when I saw the junior high school kids in the Peace Park.  In Nagasaki, it was cloudy when the bombers arrived, and they couldn't see the military targets; as a result, ground zero there was a junior high school.  I had visited Nagasaki and its museum nine years ago.

            The Peace Museum in Hiroshima also has photos of victims, with burned flesh, horrible scars, and dead bodies.  There also is a shadow of a victim on a cement sidewalk.  The museum makes you realize how horrible the atomic blast was, and desire that it never happen again.  Unfortunately, the dropping of the bomb led to an arms race between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and the stockpiling of enough weapons to destroy every living thing on earth many times over.  My generation has lived under the threat of nuclear war, which finally seemed less likely after the fall of the U.S.S.R.  But the U.S. and Russia still have stockpiles of thousands of nuclear weapons. And now Pakistan and India have the bomb, in addition to Britain, France, and China.  The possibility of nuclear annihilation still exists.  For this reason, Hiroshima has taken the lead in worldwide efforts to promote disarmament, by hosting conferences and protesting nuclear tests.

            As we were leaving the Peace Museum we ran into a tour group of students from the ship that had come by bus.  The bus ride was five hours each way, which is why we had taken the more expensive bullet train!  After greeting them we walked to Hiroshima castle.  The original castle had been built in the 1600s, but had been leveled in the atomic blast.  It was rebuilt in the 1950s. Indeed, the entire city has been rebuilt, and you would not know that it had been the site of an atomic blast were it not for the Peace Museum. People had thought it would be 75 years before anything would grow again, but greenery sprouted the year after the blast.  People suffered from radiation effects for many years, but they say that the radiation is now no higher than what is normal everywhere else.  The rebuilding of the city again shows the resilience of people, as we have seen people overcoming adversity in many ports. 

            After exploring the castle we took the bullet train back to Osaka, and explored the mall by the ship.

 

LAST DAY IN PORT IN OSAKA

            The next day everyone on the ship was sad because we realized that it was our last day in port among all of the ports.  Previously we were sad to leave one port but could look forward to a new port.  Although many could use a week's break from traveling, we weren't ready for the voyage to end. 

            My wife, son, and I took the subway to Osaka castle, which had many high tech exhibits about the life of the Shogun who had the castle built and the battles fought there.  My son wanted to see the latest video game gear, so we took the subway to Ebisucho station and explored some of the many electronic stores there.  We saw thin wide-screen television monitors, as well as cell phones which could take, send, and receive digital photos and short movies. We also saw writable DVDs. Usually Japanese electronic devices and video games are marketed in Japan about a year before in the U.S.  But often the versions sold in Japan are incompatible with those made for the U.S.  Nine years ago I had bought a Nintendo game in Japanese for my son that wouldn't play on U.S. Nintendo machines.  DVDs sold in Japan are NTSC 2 while those in the U.S. are NTSC 1; there are 5 different DVD standards sold in different regions of the world, which are incompatible with each other, requiring caution when buying DVDs elsewhere in the world.

 

CROSSING THE PACIFIC

            That evening we left Japan on our way across the Pacific to Seattle. The next night we had an auction to raise money to give to various charities in the ports we had visited.  People donated things they had brought or bought and didn't need, as well as vacation visits in their home.  The art history professor donated a 10-day visit to her home in the Himalayas, which went for over $2000 in the voice auction.  But since it was for four people, the cost was $50 per night per person which is actually a good deal!  I bought a book of American scenery that shows mountains and geological formations to give to my wife; it was a $75 book for which I initially offered $5 but ended up paying $32 after competing against two others in a silent auction!

            The following night we had a community college session on Returning Home, in which I talked about reverse culture shock, and others talked about ways of getting involved in issues we had learned about on the voyage. I pointed out that people expect to have culture shock when they go to a foreign country -- unfamiliar food and customs, and frustrations accomplishing even simple tasks.  But they don't expect culture shock on their return.  However, while they were away events happened that they missed, and even more importantly, they themselves have changed.  They have a different perspective on the world, the U.S., and themselves.  They appreciate things that they previously took for granted (like drinking water and flush toilets), and things that once seemed important might seem trivial now in comparison with global issues. Others often don't understand what they have experienced and aren't interested in hearing all the details, unless they too have traveled abroad.

            Last night we had the final dance of the voyage, this one with formal attire and a fancy dinner. We spent half of the time taking photos with our friends, as we realized that the voyage is almost over.  In the next eight days we will finish our classes, take final exams, and pack before arriving in Seattle on May 1.  My wife, son, and I will visit friends in Seattle before flying back to Los Angeles on May 4, since we had lived in Seattle before moving to California.