Hiroshima

(For this post, I am invoking my Howard Cosell Rule.)

Having just returned from an amazing trip to Japan, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this:  On this date 80 years ago, Colonel Paul Tibbets flew a B-29 bomber (named Enola Gay, after his mother) over Hiroshima, where Major Thomas Ferebee dropped what has most likely proven to be the single most influential object of the 20th Century.

 I am talking, of course, about “Little Boy,” a 4400 kilogram (9700 pound) hunk of metal encasing 64 kilograms (141 pounds) of highly enriched uranium.

(That nickname should tell you that any military organization thrives on dark or sick humor precisely because it’s incapable of irony.)

Why do I say it’s the most influential object of the 20th Century? Well, if you will indulge me a cliche, the atomic bomb probably did more than anything else to change the world.

For one thing, the Hiroshima bombing, and that of Nagasaki three days later, underscored a point that only a few influential people seemed to understand after World War I: the human race, for all of its accomplishments, is the only one capable of willfully destroying itself. If one atomic bomb could cause so much death and destruction, multiple uses of nuclear weapons—indeed, the continuation of war itself and everything that enables or results from it—would be the end of us.

(Sometimes I think the leaders of nations, including mine, are doing everything they can to ensure our annihilation.)

Now, minds greater than mine —and people who, I admit, are simply more knowledgeable about the war and military history—argue that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings hastened the end of the war. While Japanese forces indeed surrendered just days later, it could also be argued that for all of their will, they might not have been able to continue fighting much longer: major cities and industries had already been destroyed and people were deprived, even on the verge of starvation.

Here is something that, to my knowledge, is never mentioned in high school, or even college, history classes and textbooks:  On 8 August —two days after the Hiroshima nuclear attack and the day before the one in Nagasaki—the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and, a day later, invaded Manchuria, the region of northeastern China Japan invaded in 1931.

(A few paragraphs ago, I said military organizations are incapable of irony. But their actions sometimes have ironic consequences.)

Some military historians have argued that this was at least as much of a factor as the bombings in Japan’s surrender. Before the declaration of war against Japan, Soviet forces fought to defend their own country and with the Allies throughout Europe. When the Nazis surrendered on 8 May, the Soviets could turn their attention eastward, as per the Yalta agreement.

The Soviet Union, as badly depleted as it was*, nonetheless effectively doubled the number of troops available to fight their Japanese adversaries. Some have argued that alone would have been enough to bring a quick end to the war, as Japanese forces—many of whom were, by that time, ill-equipped and malnourished—were outnumbered by four or five to one.

Whatever the case may be, the lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not to repeat them. 

*—The Soviet Union had already lost 20 million people, or about 12 percent of its total population. That would be like the US, with its current population, losing every resident of California.

It Isn’t “Another Asian Country “

 I have never done a “whirlwind “ tour of any country or area I’ve visited. Instead, before taking a trip, I decide on a few places I want to see or experiences I want to have. And I wander, in part to see what most tourists won’t and to experience the “feel” of a place.

Perhaps my philosophy has been shaped by some of my trips being bike tours and by exploring places on rented bikes—as I did during my Japan trip—during other journeys.

So, before heading to the Land of the Rising Sun, I’d planned to go to Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. I kept to that itinerary, landing in Tokyo on the 16th of July, taking the Shinkansen to Osaka on the 20th, Kyoto on the 23rd and back to Tokyo on the 29th before flying back to JFK on the 30th.

In each city I had planned to take a guided bike tour shortly after arriving and let my choice of sites to visit and places to explore be guided by it.

I followed that plan in Tokyo: I wrote a post about the ride with Sho. I didn’t take such a tour in Osaka because no one seemed to know about them. I also didn’t look for a rental bike because I didn’t want to spend too much of my limited time pursuing it. As it turned out, Osaka was a more compact city than I’d expected. Finally, I didn’t take a guided bike tour in Kyoto because I felt strangely confident about getting around from the moment I rented my bike, shortly after arriving.

Okazaki nishitennocho Shrine

Turns out, my confidence was justified. First of all, mountains border Kyoto on three sides and the Kamo River bisects the city. So, even without Google maps, it’s fairly easy to navigate, especially if you like to use landmarks, as I do.

Without trying, I managed to visit most of the “important “ sites: the Imperial Palace, Nijo Caske, Shimogoyo Shrine and Kinkakujicho (“Golden Palace”), among others, in Kyoto; the Castle and Dotonbori (less than a block from my hotel) in Osaka and the Imperial Palace, Shibuya and Shinjuku Gardens (again, among others) in Tokyo. But the best thing about my trip was feeling the pace, the light and even the sounds of a language I don’t understand. It was also interesting to see how people don’t so much negotiate or navigate close spaces as much as they seem to simply move among each other, as if they’ve been doing it for centuries.

Japan, at least what I experienced of it, is about as different from any other place I’ve visited or lived as any place could be. I can’t even say, after being in Cambodia, Laos and Anatolia, that I was in “another Asian country” as I could say I was in another European country when I was in Greece or the Czech Republic after having lived in France and visited Italy, Spain or Belgium. 

Some of that feeling has to do with cycling and even in the bikes I rode and saw Japanese people riding. I will try to describe more in future posts.

Crossing From The Castle

 So what does Nijo Castle have to do with Japanese road etiquette, specifically between drivers and cyclists?

About the castle: Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, ordered its construction in 1601. Conceived as a testament to his, and his clan’s power, it served as a stage to many key events in Japanese history, including the transfer of power from the shogunate back to the emperor in 1867, and as an incubator for the codes of honor that governed, not only the samurai, but also Japanese society.

I wasn’t thinking about any of that—indeed, I knew, and still know little about any of it—as I rode my rental bike from the hotel to the castle. But I was still marveling at how drivers making the turn around Omiya Station stopped—and didn’t honk their horns or stare aggressively—as I, two other cyclists and three pedestrians crossed. 

Granted, I have seen such deference in France and other European countries. I have attributed it to the fact (or, at least, my theory) that many of those motorists are also cyclists, or at least have ridden in their recent pasts. The same is probably true for at least some Kyoto drivers:  Indeed, I saw people riding utilitarian bikes like the one I rented who were parking their cars—sometimes BMWs or other luxury or near-luxury vehicles—the day before. I suspect that they use their bikes for errands and other short trips and perhaps take rides with their kids in nearby parks. But the kind of courtesy I experienced there, and even in Tokyo, felt older and thus more ingrained than one conditioned by modes of transportation.

When I left the Castle and found my rental bike exactly where I left it—next to a shop across the street from the Castle’s main entrance—the proverbial light bulb went off in my head. And it grew brighter when I crossed the intersection—again, with drivers stopping to let me go by—it grew brighter.

I don’t know a thing about Kyoto statutes or Japanese laws, but I suspect they include the same prohibitions against stealing from and endangering other people. Such regulations, however, don’t stop people from theft, assault or murder in the United States. Now, some have said that it’s because the US is so diverse and Japan is so orderly because it’s 98 percent Japanese. Frankly, I find that explanation offensive because it’s essentially racist.

In learning about the arrangement of rooms within the Ninomaru Palace and the ceremonies and rituals involved in everything from negotiations between the shoguns and emperors to meals, I realized that there was an even greater degree of shame in violating those rules and morés than in transgressing the unwritten rules, or breaking the laws, of most other societies. It seems that the samurai codes of honor—and the fear of violating them—has become part of the DNA of people whose great-grandparents weren’t born when the last samauri died.

One thing I have learned—and that James Baldwin and others have expressed in ways I never could—is that every person, and every group of people, who has a language and culture that is their own has paid a price for it. (As Caliban tells Prospero in The Tempest: “You have given me language/ And the profit on’t is, I can curse.”) The shoguns were military rulers which means, of course, that their codes had the threat of violence behind them.  So, I believe, it’s fair to ask whether the fact that I could ride without the fear of being victimized by a driver’s “road rage” or that I could leave a bike secured by nothing more than the “Chinese” lock is hereditary, learned or a result of intergenerational trauma. (Nobody is better at inflicting trauma than any military.)

Whatever the answer, I’ll say that I enjoyed the peace of mind I felt while cycling in Japan, even on its busiest roads.